[Leica] Nikon D2X review

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

At 3:44 AM -0400 5/10/05, Scott McLoughlin wrote:
>Folks,
>
>Um, not at my price limit for a DSLR body, but maybe the D2X
>gets a good number of favorable reviews because it happens to be
>a great camera.   After all, before the megapixel wars, Nikon is the
>company that delivered legendary and beloved camera bodies like
>the FM2n, F3, F5, F100 and so on.
>In the film world, Nikon has won my admiration with moves like
>continuing the FM/FE line with the FM3a (love mine), cranking out
>the new F6 for the true film faithful and last but not least, producing
>the amazingly capable and popular F/N80 body at a fantastic price
>(my g'friend shoots one now).

When Nikon came out with the F80, I started 
looking around at other options. The abandonment 
of the manual focus lenses was written on the 
wall, and that was one of the main reasons I had 
stuck with Nikon.

>Personally, I really don't give a crap if Nikon has a 20D competitor 1
>week after Canon releases their camera. I snagged a D70 last summer,
>and I want to put some wear and tear on that shutter before I upgrade.
>
>What I'm looking for in a D200 are 1) Big bright VF, 2) metering with
>nicely damped, loverly AI lenses, 3) Optional vertical grip/shutter release
>and 4) I guess a few more megapixels. 
>Canon's D20 does nothing for me on items #1 and #2, so I could not
>care less.  I enjoy shooting my DSLR, but I don't *personally* think that
>chasing megapixels in tiny 2k increments is going to do squat for *my*
>own personal shooting/printing habits or results.

Actually, in some respects the 20D works better 
with the AI lenses than the D70, or D100. It 
meters, but of course no automatic diaphragm is 
available. I still use some AI Nikkors on my 20D.

>There was a link to an interview with a Nikon exec someone posted
>over on PN, and oddly enough, he actually did comment that Nikon
>was willing to "compete with itself" (e.g., D2X) when it releases their
>D100 successor.

Not competing with the competition seems rather 
ostrich like, or even Leica like.

>As for full frame, I'll be interested when such cameras descend below
>$3-4K in price. So again, Canon's offering holds little attraction. I'd
>love for my 35mm lenses to have the "right" FOV, but right now APS
>is going to have to do for the majority of DSLR shooters, and likely for
>quite some time. I actually bought my first DX (gasp) zoom (gasp gasp)
>lens just recently. 12-24 DX, and so far it does quite a nice job at the
>wide end for my purposes. Still finding the whole zoom thing a bit odd,
>though :-)

Zooms work better on digital bodies in some ways 
than on film bodies. Resolution is not as great 
an issue, so mtf curves can be optimized over a 
narrower resolution range. Distortion is easily 
corrected in post production, so other parameters 
can be optimized at the expense of distortion.

The APS-C vs full frame debate seems pointless to 
me as the smaller format is just that; a smaller 
format. It has advantages and disadvantages. If 
you have or can get lenses that give you the 
angles of view you want, you're set.

As for Bj?ron's review and site in general, he's 
an enthusiastic Nikon user, but his 'tests' are 
weird and suspect, to say the least. He's happy 
with Nikon, and he has reason to be, but 
otherwise the 'test' information is largely 
useless.

-- 
    *            Henning J. Wulff
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